Apple Cranberry Cobbler

There’s this song I love with a chorus that goes like so:

the littlest birds
sing the prettiest songs
the littlest birds
sing the prettiest songs

This weekend I was singing that song, but I changed the chorus a bit. Instead of birds there was fruit. And it goes like this:

the ugliest fruit
makes the loveliest pie
the ugliest fruit
makes the loveliest pie

Why the ugly fruit and pie? Well, my mom emailed me earlier this week and asked me if I would like some apples from the farm of a coworker. I never say no to free fruit, so soon I had a bag of mixed golden delicious and braeburn apples.

At the same time, Noel and I had received an invitation to a dinner and pumpkin beer tasting party for Saturday night. As is my habit, I volunteered to bring dessert–here’s a warning to you all–if you ever ask me over I’m going to be ALL OVER dessert. And what better to bring to a fall themed party than something with apples? And since all apples taste the same once you get their skins off, it seemed like a perfect match to pair the ugly apples and all the fixins into some sort of wonderful apple pie.

But then, a complication. I had a request from the host to make something with only one crust, ie not pie. I turned to the great world wide web cookbook, Google, and was surprised to find a lack of apple cobbler recipes. I really scoured before coming across one that seemed okay, compliments of Warren Brown. But I was even a bit skeptical of Mr. Brown, who I’ve lost some serious respect for since his Baltimore location of CakeLove HAS NO OVEN! How can you have a bakery without an oven? That’s my question, too.

By Saturday morning when it was time to bake and I hadn’t come up with an alternative, I decided to give the Brown recipe a go. Good thing I did, because this recipe got him back on my favorites list.

Apple Cranberry Cobbler
Adapted from Warren Brown’s Sugar Rush

I adapted this recipe a bit to do three things: to use the apples I had on hand, to kick up the spices, and to make it less fussy. Yes, I thought the original recipe was fussy after a first read, with all of the bowl shifting and apple straining it called for–and I am notorious for thinking complicated recipes are unfussy. So I eliminated some steps that I didn’t think would make a difference in the final product and it still worked, so I’m eliminating those steps here. I’m also not a fan of nuts and dessert, so I cut out the almond topping.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 pounds Braeburn apples
• 2 pounds Fuji apples
• 1 1/2 pounds Golden Delicious apples
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks (6-ounces) chilled unsalted butter, plus softened butter for baking dish
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup sweetened, dried cranberries
• 1 large egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Note: You will need approximately 8 to 10 apples total.

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and butter a 9 by 13-inch baking dish.

Peel and core the apples and cut them into 1/4 to 1/2-inch dice. Try to get the apples pieces as uniform as possible to ensure even baking in the cobbler. Combine the apples with 1 cup of the sugar in a large bowl. Cover and set in the refrigerator while preparing the cobbler topping. The sugar will draw out some of the moisture in the apples, so the filling will be nice and thick.

Combine the remaining sugar with the flour and salt in a medium size bowl. Set aside 1/2 cup of the sugar and flour mixture to coat the apples. Cut the chilled butter into small pieces and work into the sugar/flour mixture using a pastry cutter, a fork, or your fingers until it forms a coarse meal.

Combine the apples with the reserved flour and sugar mixture. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, and sweetened dried cranberries to the apples and stir well to evenly distribute all the flavors. Pour into the buttered baking dish.

Lightly beat the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and slowly drizzle it into the flour mixture. Don’t worry if it seems a little dry at first. Continue to stir the mixture until the flour is completely absorbed into the egg–don’t be afraid to get your hands in there to really mix the dry ingredients in with the wet ones. Take a small bit of the topping and roll it into a 2-inch ball. Gently flatten the ball into a disk and place it on top of the apple mixture in the baking dish. Repeat with the remaining topping, slightly overlapping the disks.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until the juices are bubbling and the topping is a light golden brown. Let the cobbler rest for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

So why is Warren Brown back on my good side? Because this was wonderful. The overlapping pancakes of topping turned into a solid crust in the oven that was more crispy like pie crust than your standard cobbler biscuit top. The combination of apples melded into one lovely apple flavor that wasn’t too sweet and the cranberries added a little extra kick. We went a little crazy over this cobbler, which turned out to be the perfect compliment to pumpkin beer and a fall gathering of friends.

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